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Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Breaking News: Amberance Went Somewhere

There have been no updates to the blog lately, mainly because there is nothing at all of substance going on in my life. I go to work, I come home, I watch Tosh.0 and imagine having rough sex with the host (I don't know, the guy just looks dirty to me), I go to bed. Sometimes I work out or try to cross-stitch (which is made difficult by a cat who thinks any and all thread in the home must be attacked and destroyed), but for the most part there simply hasn't been anything to write about. Over the weekend I attempted to rectify six week's worth of lameness by cramming my entire social life into three days.

On Friday, the great Jon from Total Talk Nonsense, the greatest podcast anywhere, was playing a gig out in the suburbs with his new band, The Toxic Crayons. I had originally planned on attending as a participant - the lead singer had been asking me to sing with their various bands for years, and we'd finally nailed down some actual songs to work on rather than just the vague idea that "you should sing with us". Side note: I find the request for me to sing with the band completely hilarious, given that none of them, including Jon, have ever actually heard me sing. They're basing this decision solely on the fact that I told them I could sing, which they've taken at face value and assumed that I'm brilliant. Which I am, but they have no way of actually knowing that. For all they know I could just be saying I can sing when I really sound like Roseanne Barr. Anywhore, the plans fell through when I never went to band practice because various members may or may not have learned the songs. For my own part, I would have been nervous anyway - I know I am capable of singing "Heartbreaker", I just don't think I'm nearly cool enough to pull off getting on stage and looking like I have any business singing Pat Benatar. Besides, boy who doesn't call was supposed to be there and despite the fact that I want to lick him, singing in front of him gives me pause. It didn't matter, because he wasn't there and I didn't sing anyway. I knew I was in the suburbs when I walked into the bar and was immediately surrounded by children. Not college kids on a binge, actual children. Because in the suburbs, you can take your kids to the pub for dinner and not worry that they might see someone getting fingerbanged in full view of the public. The show went pretty well for the most part, despite half the band being sick and one song that completely disintegrated. They made up for it by playing some Stray Cats. In the meantime, I got a round of applause from the band wives and other fans sitting near me for getting carded, which I attributed to my green hair but Mrs. Jon insisted had more to do with my "young face".

I left there and drove Alistair back to the city to leave at the bar for the bartender to run errands after work ("I want you to promise me you'll be very careful," said the Crayon's bass player while bear hugging me goodbye, "because it is snowing and everyone else on the road is drunk, and you're adorable."). Then I went into the bar to let the bartender know where the car was. Mistake. There were too many friends there to just walk in and walk back out again, and I wound up hanging around for an hour and a half, listening to 90's hip hop (yes, I still know all the words to "The Humpy Dance" AND "Poison" by Bel Biv DeVoe, thanks for asking) and chatting with Hellbilly about various concerts and, unfortunately, UFC fighting. By chatting I mean nodding, Hellbilly needs no partner to carry on a conversation because he never ever ever shuts up.

I eventually got home from Tai's some time after 3 a.m. and spend another 45 minutes stalking people on Facebook and eating pretzels before I went to bed. My plans for Saturday had involved a lot of errand running and some weight lifting, all of which fell apart when I didn't get out of bed until 5 in the afternoon (this was not all my fault - I woke up at 3, but was immediately trapped under a cuddly cat who growled and hissed every time I tried to ease her off of me). Instead I spent the evening watching Chicago and deciding that Velma Kelly is the roll for me and that Queen Latifa is actually pretty fucking sexy.

On Sunday, the bartender and I headed over to the Congress to see Against Me! and the Dropkick Murphys. The Congress is one of my favorite venues to see music in Chicago. Unfortunately it is run by idiots. We had bought tickets online, or thought we had. After standing in line to get in for five minutes, we were told that anyone with paper tickets had to go stand in line at Will Call and trade them in for real tickets, which if I have to stand in line for them, it largely defeats the point of buying them online. While standing in the cold and rain waiting in line and shivering, we saw a group of girls who were not exactly dressed for the weather much at all which happily has inspired the name of my new all girl band - Daddy Issues. Our first single will be called "Get In Line" and is about running a train (Google it if you don't know, just don't watch the videos. Or watch them, I don't know your preferences). The line moved more slowly than it needed to - Will Call has but one door for both ingress and egress because clearly these people are geniuses. Once we got to the front of the line, they took our pieces of paper and issued us our tickets: basically little red tickets you would use for a raffle that I could have bought a roll of 1000 of for $5 at the party store. Then we got back in the first line, where they didn't even bother to take my little raffle ticket anyway, so I'm mystified why they made me stand in line to get one. Once inside we met up with the loquacious Hellbilly and a friend of his and settled in to the side of the main crowd because we are old people and also it's closer to the beer.

The Dropkick Murphys draw an interesting crowd. It's a mix of punks and people who think they're Irish, and everyone is drunk before they even get there. One girl was clearly on Ecstasy and had no idea she was not at a rave. The Dropkick Murphys were brilliant as always, one of their roadies proposed to his girlfriend on stage (she said "HOLY SHIT" which the crowd took as a yes) and they brought Chris Pisani on stage during "I'm Shipping Up To Boston", who Blackhawks fans will know as "That guy who dances to the Dropkick Murphys song at every Blackhawks game". All the while, Hellbilly was trying to kill us with Jameson, which I eventually had to start discreetly setting on the floor and knocking over to avoid a trip to the ER. The show had started very late due to Against Me! getting stuck in traffic driving up from Houston and the Dropkick Murphys having attended the Blackhawks game which went to shootouts. Consequently, there were many disappointed 12 year olds who didn't get flashed during "Kiss me I'm Shitfaced" (which my friend Tanyas participated in at the Saturday night show and then stole a set list) because they left before the encore, and I didn't get home until after 1 a.m. on a school night and paid for dearly the next day.